You tweet too much. There’s nothing wrong with tweeting often. Heavens knows that I send out dozens of tweets some days. But you don’t have to tweet every single time something happens in your life. Tweet stuff that’s important or interesting. If you’re just a constant stream of “Going to the library. At the library. Looking for books at the library. Man, the library sure is quiet. I shouldn’t be tweeting from the library. Oh, finally found my book at the library. The librarian checking me out is very nice. I should come to the library more often. Time to walk home from the library. Home from the library. That was a nice trip to the library…” people start to tune you out because you’re boring them to death.

You said something offensive recently. Twitter is a great place to speak your mind, but at the same time, just because you’re on the Internet doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have any kind of filter at all. Say your piece, but always have class.

You have a really varied following. It’s cool to have lots of interests, but it pays to have followers interested in your blog’s niche making up the bulk of your followers. If you run two blogs in vastly different niches, you might want consider having two different Twitter accounts. People interested in your sports blog aren’t going to retweet links to your fashion blog in most cases.

The tweets you’re sending aren’t high-quality. Are your blog posts high-quality? Sadly, many times I’ll click links people are tweeting and their blogs just…aren’t that great. Boring. Full of errors. Hard to read. Old news. If you’re going to tweet about it, it better be good. Otherwise, that’s the last time I’ll care about a link you tweet.

You tweet at weird times. If you’re tweeting when most of your readers are sleeping, you won’t get as many retweets or replies. That’s just a fact of life. While I personally don’t like scheduling tweets, it is an option.

Your tweets are hard to read.You should make amble use of hashtags and @, and I even understand using Internet language (leetspeak like “u” instead of “you” for example) to keep your tweets under the Twitter character count. Just keep in mind that readability of your tweet matters. Sometimes. I have to read a tweet two or three times to understand what the person it trying to say.

You ignore people. I understand that it is difficult to keep up with every single follower, but when someone directly talks to you through a DM or @ reply, don’t ignore them. Not every message needs a reply, but make an effort to respond to people when appropriate.

Because I made you wait for the second half, here’s a bonus twitter tip for you: If you want people to retweet your links, be approachable. In my opinion, the number one way to ensure this happens is to avoid using Twitter as your personal outlet for complaining. When someone is always in a bad mood on Twitter, constantly complaining or being negative, it makes me less likely to interact with that person. Be happy! Be positive! If you’re a likable, approachable person on Twitter, people will want to be your friend, and they’ll want to retweet everything you say.

Allison Boyer is a writer for BWE’s blog and the owner/manager of After Graduation. She’s currently twoting all over the place. Don’t you twitter-stand?